What type of fertilizer do you recommend for spring treatment?

What I would always want people to look for is a granular slow-release fertilizer. That’s best to start getting down in March and April. You can then move to liquid fertilizers for spot treatments later in the season.

A granular slow release gives you a nice amount of nutrients to get that lush grass canopy growing. It’ll release about 40% of its nutrients right away.

Then the remaining 60% get released over a longer period of time so that the grass is able to keep absorbing it. Otherwise it would just oversaturate your lawn and runoff into our waterways.

Spring is also a big time for pests to arrive in St. Augustine grass, which most people have in this area. How should people prepare for that in regards to fertilization?

At McCall Service, we put down a preventative pesticide before fertilizing the grass. If you don’t use the pesticide, you’re just making a nice buffet for the bugs and nothing to stop them from eating it.

Right now, we’re just on the edge of chinch bug season. They’re the ones that you especially want to treat preemptively, because you don’t always see the damage they do to your lawn right away. If you wait until you start seeing damage, it’ll be too late.

We use a granular and a liquid application to prevent these bugs. We try to rotate our pesticides to prevent the bugs from building up a resistance.

What other factors should people keep in mind when fertilizing their lawns this season?

One thing that’s very important to us is mowing that doesn’t scalp the lawn.